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"We had not been long upon our knees before I heard considerable scuffling and loud talking. I raised my head up and saw one of the trustees having hold of the Rev. Absalom Jones, pulling him off his knees, and saying, 'You must get up, you must not kneel here.' Mr. Jones replied, 'Wait until prayer is over, and I will get up and trouble you no more.' With that he beckoned to one of the trustees to come to his assistance. He came and went to William White to pull him up. By this time prayer was over, and we all went out of the church in a body, and they were no more plagued by us in the church."
From the autobiograpy of Richard Allen,
first Bishop of the AME Church
In 1787, Richard Allen and others of African descent withdrew from St. George's Methodist Church in Philadelphia because of unkind treatment and restrictions placed upon the worshispers of African descent. After Allen left St. George's Methodist Church, he and his followers purchased a blacksmith shop for thirty-five dollars. From the blacksmith shop they worshipped and helped the sick and the poor. The blacksmith shop was converted into a church. They called the new church Bethel.
In 1816 Allen called together sixteen representatives from Bethel African Church in Philadelphia and African churches in Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey to meet in Philadelphia. The movement blossomed and the African Methodist Episcopal Chucrh was organized. Richard Allen was the first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The AME Church has never strayed from the course charted by Richard Allen. The church is wedded to the spiritual doctrine of "God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, Man our Brother".